DEMON GROUPI ACCIDENTALLY ENTERED THE EVIL CHAT!

The connection was severed abruptly.

Yuan Lin's consciousness returned to his body with violence, as if a soul had been thrown from a great height to collide with its flesh on the ground.

He fell from his chair, hitting the cold wooden floor.

He was gasping for air, his lungs burning, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged bird.

His limbs were trembling uncontrollably, and his shirt was stuck to his skin with cold sweat.

His body hadn't moved an inch, but he felt an exhaustion that surpassed anything he had ever felt in his life.

The smell of the now-cold pizza filled the room, but now it made him feel nauseous.

It smelled like it was from another world, from another simple, innocent life that was no longer his.

He closed his eyes, but the images wouldn't stop. They were seared behind his eyelids.

He saw the cracked black plain, the shattered moon that looked like a wound in the sky.

He saw the bodies of the insectoid monsters turning to dust.

And he saw, with painful clarity, the faces of Wu Tian's "Gray Guard" as they fell, their black armor unable to protect them from the silent, chitinous claws.

They had died.

They died following a plan he had devised based on a metaphor from his old job.

"It was just a metaphor... a DDoS attack..." he thought in panic. "But they died. They really died because of a stupid plan I came up with while thinking about computer viruses."

A wave of nausea washed over him.

He crawled to the bathroom, barely reaching the toilet before he emptied the contents of his stomach.

There wasn't much, but he heaved until he felt his insides were tearing.

It wasn't just a physical sickness, but a sickness of the soul.

After he was done, he remained on the cold bathroom floor, his back against the wall, shivering.

The "game" had been fun when it was just about tricking his way to extra points or some garlic sauce.

It had been exciting when it was just a fight with stray dogs in a junkyard.

But this... this was different.

He had seen death, and he was the director and the executioner.

He had pressed the button, and people... or demons... had died. He wasn't sure of the difference anymore.

In the midst of this psychological vertigo, a series of notifications appeared in his vision, flashing with a cold blue light that contrasted with his internal chaos.

[You have successfully guided your subordinate through a "Blood Oath" crisis.]

[You have successfully defended a core territory of the Chaos Lineage.]

[Your strategic command has averted a faction-level catastrophe.]

[Lord Authority Level +5. Current Level: 7.]

[You have been rewarded with +2000 Chaos Points for exceptional performance.]

[Current Balance: 2230 Chaos Points.]

Two thousand points. And his authority had jumped five levels at once.

He stared at the numbers with empty eyes.

Two days ago, this number would have made him dance for joy.

He would have immediately started planning what to buy from the store; he would have felt like the richest man in the world.

Now, all he felt was cold.

These points were stained with blood and dust. They were the price of the lives that had fallen on his command. Each point was like a silent scream from that battle.

"So this is the price," he thought bitterly. "Every level I climb, every point I gain... is built on their struggle and suffering in their world."

He realized the ugly truth of his role. He wasn't "playing" as a "Lord." He actually was one.

He was sitting in his safe world, in his comfortable apartment, moving chess pieces in a war being fought galaxies away, and the pieces were made of flesh and blood.

He felt a desperate need to escape. To return to anything "normal," anything that reminded him of who he was before all this.

With difficulty, he got to his trembling feet and returned to his living room.

He glanced at the pizza boxes and felt another wave of nausea. He grabbed them and threw them forcefully into the trash bag. They were the last remnants of his old world, and now they were tainted.

He went to his computer. His super-fast computer that he had fixed with his new power.

He turned it on and, instinctively, opened the video game he always used to play. A fantasy RPG full of monsters and quests.

He started playing. His character in the game, a great warrior in shining armor, was fighting a group of goblins.

The swords made artificial metallic sounds, and the goblins screamed pre-recorded screams and turned into a cloud of pixels when they died.

The scene was always familiar and comforting. But not now.

He felt disgusted.

"This is fake," he thought, staring at the screen. "The blood isn't real. The screams are just audio files. None of this matters."

He had seen a real battle. He had seen what a real warrior looked like, panting with exhaustion. He had heard the psychic scream of a dying being.

This game, which had been his sanctuary, was now just a trivial and offensive child's play.

He shut down the game forcefully and turned off the computer.

He sat in the darkness and silence. There was no longer any escape.

He could no longer go back to being the old Yuan Lin. That person had died in the alley, or perhaps he had died now, in this room, after witnessing a real war.

He was left alone with his new self, and with the System that inhabited his mind.

He didn't know how long he sat like that. But slowly, the panic and shock began to fade, replaced by something else. Something colder, and harder.

Harsh realism.

"It was horrifying," he admitted to himself. "But... it worked. My plan worked. And I'm stronger now because of it. The System works. If I want to survive this madness, if I want to protect myself from being a victim again, I have to use this system. I have to get stronger."

Something fundamental inside him had changed. The initial shock of the evening had taught him that power has a price. But the hours that followed taught him a deeper lesson: weakness has an even greater price.

He opened his mental interface again. He looked at his huge balance of points, and at his new authority level.

He no longer saw blood in them; he saw resources. Tools.

He wasn't thinking about revenge or world domination. He was thinking about something more practical.

"I survived this crisis by a miracle. I relied on a tech metaphor, on luck. Next time, I might not be so lucky. The crisis might be here, in my world. I have to be ready."

He realized his greatest enemy wasn't monsters or other factions. His greatest enemy was his own ignorance, his weakness, and the chaos inherent in his powers and in his mind.

He entered the [Store] again. He wasn't looking for weapons or combat skills. He was past that. He was looking for something more essential.

He scrolled his mental fingers through the lists until he found what he was looking for in the "Mind & Soul Techniques" section.

[Cosmic Mind-Calming Sutra]

[Description: An ancient meditation technique that allows the practitioner to calm the sea of their consciousness, filter psychic trauma, and enhance their resistance to external mental influences and psychic echoes.]

[Price: 1200 Chaos Points.]

The price was exorbitant, more than half of what he had earned. But he didn't hesitate for a moment.

[Confirm Purchase?]

"Yes."

The moment he bought the technique, he felt a flood of calm, organized knowledge flow into his mind. It wasn't violent like the orchid's energy, but like a cool, refreshing stream of water washing over his exhausted soul.

He closed his eyes. He no longer saw images of the battle. For the first time in hours, he felt true silence in his mind.

He realized his journey to power wouldn't just be about strengthening his body or learning combat skills. It had to start from within. He had to build a fortress in his mind before he could build an empire outside.

The era of the reactive Yuan Lin was over. And the era of the planning, preparing Lord had begun.

This was his true lesson from the Blood Oath.